So. I was having ‘post work drinks’ with a
friend (a minefield in itself and certainly essay worthy) and that horrible
thing happened again. We met so and so’s work colleague who, oh yes, is best
friend’s with your ex! What a coincidence! And this guy, sunglasses Mcgee,
knows your mate from Uni!!! And Anne over there, pashmina Anne, went to the
same school as you but you don’t remember but your mum does and by the way, how
is she?
Is it just me, or is the world getting
smaller? And I know that may sound base, but recently I feel like the ghosts of
the past or indeed the ghosts of the unknown but closely linked, are chasing at
my heels. And quite frankly, it’s just annoying. These connections, as much as
they can be fun and surprising, often put a dampener on things. It’s unsettling.
In some situations, a new job for instance, you’re in a totally separate world
from all the school and Uni connections that were so prevalent in our day-to-day
lives before and now you’re testing new water. Putting your best shiny self
forward. So when you realise that you’re having a pint with someone that you
made out with in an Indie club in Birmingham when you were 15, all glassy eyed
and hepped up on poppers, it can become a bit tainted.
I’d love to make a flow chart of all the
connections we have between one another. Because aside from growing up in the
same city, going to the same school or the same University, these tenuous links
between people geographically miles apart and often several friendship groups
apart, all come down to personal choice.
Myself for example. I grew up in Birmingham
and was sent to a private all girls school. I then spent the rest of my years
in Birmingham (and at University. And now to be honest) feeling a bit uneasy
about that and very much aware of the person I wanted to be. Luckily I had a
cool older brother whose records, books and friends I could steal to help me.
And at school I connected with people who also only cared about The Strokes and
wanted more than anything to get into Res and smoke fags and kiss boys but were
also out spoken and smart and although somewhat detached from the ethos of our
school, did well there. And we met other people who felt right and that was
that. Circulating between the clubs and
bars we could get into until we got old enough to get into them and we didn’t
want to go any more.
And then we all went to Uni in different
places and made friends who liked the same music, believed the same things,
danced the same way, got as drunk, got as serious, laughed at the same things,
dressed similarly etc. The kind of person you’d say “We have the rest of our
lives to pay each other back!” to, whilst dropping a cool twenty on the SU bar.
Or just sit in silence next to on the sofa.
And that was that for three glorious years.
And now, as people start to climb onto a
career ladder and more start to trickle down to London from various places in
the UK, it seems that everyone spent those three years doing similar things:
making friends with your friend.
I suppose it can be seen as life affirming:
there’s a reason we make connections with people. And it’s not necessarily
because of basic shared interest or changeable superficiality. It’s because we
see a part of ourselves in them, a part that makes sense. Or in the best-case
scenarios, a part that makes more sense of ourselves.
So if that means that the six degrees of
separation gets a bit tighter, so be it.
I’m just grateful that the chance of us
being biologically related is a lot slimmer.
